Governor Cuomo Wants To Screw State Employees Once Again.

As we come to the end of the 2011-16 contract that royally screwed State workers, our Governor has once again decided to balance his budget on the backs of his State workers.  First, he has decided not to include any meaningful raises, without givebacks, for the next contract despite the State doing well financially.  However, what's worse is what the Governor's budget do to State retirees who retire after October 1, 2016.

The Governor's budget wants to drastically reduce retiree health benefits for future retirees by including the following items that would save the State $12.4 million dollars in the next two years:

• Freeze reimbursement for the Medicare Part B premium at $105 per month and not the recently increased $122 monthly that Medicare Part B now costs. New State retirees would be responsible for the difference.

• Reduce payments for retirees with less than 30 years of service.  At present the State pays 100% of all health coverage for pay grades 9 or lower and between 84% to 88% for pay grades 10 and higher for single workers and 69% to 73% for families.  The Governor wants to reduce the entire workforce by the amount of years they worked under 30.  The minimum vested employee (10 years) being 50% for individuals and 35% for families.

• Interestingly, the Governor would eliminate the prescription drug coverage fee for high income State retires making over $85,000 for single and $170,000 for families.  I wonder if this is a favor to his people who work under him and make in excess of $100,000?

The Governor's Office contends the proposed cuts are fair and aligns with other pension systems.

In other news there is a rumor floating around that the State will offer an early retirement incentive.  However, according to Assemblyman Peter Abatte who is the go to politician on employee issues, there is no such bill and it was originally proposed three years ago and is not part of the Assembly's budget proposal this year. Moreover, for one to pass, it would need both the Governor's and the State Senate's approval and that's not likely.

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I Support The "Opt Out" Movement And So Does The New Regents Chancellor.

I have been a firm supporter of the "opt out" movement that was in response to the State's misguided Common Core based "high stakes tests" that forced teachers to forego real education to concentrate on months of test preparation. The backlash  was swift as 20% of the State's students refused to take the Common Core based "high stakes" tests, with Long Island seeing a 50% "opt out" rate last year.  This year, the State made some cosmetic changes such as eliminating the time limit, having fewer questions, and provide more materials for the tests.  Moreover, the State, under pressure, will not tie-in the test results to teacher evaluations (4 year moratorium).  However, this still means that teachers are doing months of test preparation for Common Core based tests that 70% of the students will not achieve proficiency in.  Furthermore, it will take six days to complete the tests and that takes away from time for real learning.  Finally, most students from 3-8 grades detest these tests and suffer from fear and loathing as they become stressed out in taking these difficult tests.  Is that what we want for our children?

Earlier this month, Chancellor Carmen Farina claimed that any teacher who supported the "opt out" movement and told their students of their opinion were "unprofessional".  In other words, the Chancellor is imposing her own personal opinion to the classroom teacher.  Well considering how disappointing the Chancellor has been in eliminating the Bloomberg education system that has resulted in changing the deck chairs on the Titanic, her opinion is worthless.  Maybe the Chancellor should start improving the New York City schools by terminating the 300 Bloomberg holdovers she retained at the DOE and remove the 400 Principals she claimed should not be running their schools.  Chancellor Farina needs to "clean house" and show that she's an effective manager before teachers will take what she says seriously.

Now the "opt out" movement received a big jump start as the new Regents Chancellor, Betty Rosa, has told the New York Times that if she had a child in the 3-8 grade cohort, she would "opt out" her child until the State changed the tests and the procedures associated with them.   Now that Ms. Rosa is in charge, let's see how the Common Core based "high stakes" tests and the teacher evaluation tie-in actually changes. Maybe there's some hope down the road.

To Ed Deformers, Its Deep Poverty Stupid!

Over the years education reform organizations, commonly known as ed deformers have minimized the role poverty plays in student academic achievement and blame the problem on "ineffective teachers". Now an article by Bill Hammond has shown that poverty is the major factor in low performing schools in New York State. While some studies have previously shown a correlation between single mothers in poverty and poor student academic achievement, there were no studies that connected the 178 "failing schools", oops struggling schools in New York State with poverty  However a new report has found just such a connection, a"lock step" correlation between the concentration of deep poverty in all the schools and their academic shortcomings.  In fact, the report showed that for every 10% increase in students in  poverty, the academic test scores in English and Math dropped 6.3 points  Since all the 178  "struggling schools"  have high concentrations of low income students, the results were proof that poverty greatly affects student academic achievement.

The report prepared by John Bacheller found that the 178 "struggling schools" had an average proficiency rate of 6%, compared to 30% for the entire State in English and Math.  The report also points out that poverty made up 79% of the test results while the rest were associated with schools, including teacher quality, budgets, resources, class size, and administration accounted for the remaining 21% of a student's test results.  This is in line with other studies and the American Statistical Association that found that any one teacher contributed between 1% and 14% of a child's academic achievement not the 50% that Governor Cuomo and his ed deformer allies pushed through. 

The ed deformers can complain all they want and blame it on "ineffective teachers" but this study shows the "lock step" correlation between "failing schools" and high concentrations of low income students as the primary reason for poor student academic achievement.

Termination Pay Or Terminal Leave? - What You Should Know.

One of the options at retirement that teachers have is to "cash in" their available sick days by either applying for termination pay or terminal leave.  In both cases for every 2 sick days, 1 day is credited.  This is commonly known as "2 for 1".  For example if the teacher has 100 sick days in their Cumulative Absence Reserve (CAR), they are credited with 50 days of pay if taken as termination pay or 50 days of service for terminal leave.  Here are some of the things you need to know before you make that decision.

Termination Pay:

If you decide to take termination pay, you will receive three lump sum payments annually for a total of one half the days you had in your CAR at the time of retirement or resignation/termination. To apply for termination pay you need to download the form from the DOE website or ask your payroll secretary for form OP44, if you are a rotating ATR or were terminated and the school is uncooperative, then please call Amy Arundell at UFT headquarters and she will assist you in obtaining and completing the form.  You must submit the  QP44 form at least one month (30 calendar days) before asking for termination pay.

The OP44 form is essential since the DOE will not automatically pay you for your available CAR days without a completed form and you don't want the DOE to keep your money.

Finally, you will need to pay income and Social Security taxes on the year that you receive the lump sum payment.  However, the payments will not affect the earnings limitations on either NYS public employment or Social Security.

Terminal Leave:

You are allowed to go on leave before officially retiring and use up half of the days in your CAR.  If you decide retiring is not for you, then, as long as you still have days remaining in your CAR, you can get your position back with the remaining CAR as the starting point.  However, there are some limitations that one needs to know before choosing the terminal leave option.

Terminal leave cannot extend beyond one semester.  Any remaining CAR will automatically be converted to termination pay. Moreover, You must decide by May 31st if you take terminal leave in the second semester (February) to rejoin the workforce, otherwise, your decision is irrevocable and you will be considered retired.  The same goes for the first semester (September), if you do not return to service by December 31st, you are considered to have retired.  You cannot apply to be reinstated in either January or June.  To return to service you must contact the DOE and UFT since an application must be filled out before you can begin working again. Once your CAR is exhausted, your terminal leave is over and you will have officially retired.  Remember, you must submit your QP40 form at least one month (30 calendar days) before you apply for terminal leave.

If you become ill during your terminal leave period, contact the DOE and UFT and apply to have your terminal leave converted to sick leave, subject to the approval of the medical bureau. Finally, there is no limitation to how many times you can take terminal leave, providing you have the available CAR days in your bank.

During the time you are on terminal leave you will be considered an active member with full pay and benefits as well as accumulating CAR days,  pension credits, and still contribute to the TDA.  If you decide to take terminal leave during the second semester and intend to retire, you can send a check to the Teacher's Retirement System to fully fund your TDA for the rest of the year.  For example if you are allowed to contribute $24,000 to the TDA but only will contribute $18,000, then before June 26th send a check for $6,000 to TRS to fully fund your annual TDA contribution.  The one limitation is that you must have made at least $24,000 to take advantage of this.  Otherwise, you are limited to the earned income made before you take terminal leave.  Finally, once you retire there are no TDA contributions allowed.

 Form QP40 is available online from the DOE website or the payroll secretary.  For rotating ATRs who are unable to obtain the form,  contact Amy Arundell at UFT headquarters and she will assist you in applying for terminal leave.

Whether you choose termination pay or terminal leave, remember the DOE can and does reject applications for either if you don't complete the QP44 or the QP40 forms at least one month before you retire.

Note:  If you decide to come back under terminal leave, you will be placed in the ATR pool, unless your Principal requests you back and excesses another, less senior, teacher.

Ex Chancellor Joel Klein Changes His Tune About Poverty & Education.

Back in the heyday of the Bloomberg administration, Chancellor Joel Klein bragged how New York City was closing the racial achievement gap.  All his controversial policies that included closing schools, reducing the power of Superintendents, the fair student funding formula that resulted in the ATR pool of highly experienced teachers , and the newly empowered principals who hired "newbies" to stretch their reduced budgets, at the expense of their students education.  Of course, the narrowing of the racial achievement gap was a fiction and when the State revised the cut scores in 2010 to their appropriate value, the racial achievement gap actually widened!  The embarrassed Mayor asked for the Chancellor's resignation and Joel Klein was gone by the end of the year.

Before the illusion of the narrowing of the racial achievement gap was exposed nationally, Chancellor Joel Klein stated the following: "That poverty is not destiny" in a 2011 Teach for America conference .  This statement became the rallying cry of the education reform movement who instead blamed ineffective teachers for the poor educational results in high poverty schools.  Now, it seems the ex Chancellor is whistling a different tone.  In a speech at the 25th anniversary of Teach For America, he said the following: " how complicated education reform is and how poverty is definitely a complicating factor".  His entire speech can be found in the Gary Rubinstein blog.

Interestingly, in an exit interview Joel Klein gave the New York Times he claimed his biggest failure was that he was unable to terminate the ATRs that were costing over $100 million dollars annually.  Its good to know that since his departure, Joel Klein has cost the DOE almost $1 billion dollars, just in salary alone, not including other benefits and maybe the De Blasio administration will realize how wasteful the policies of Joel Klein is costing the City money and experience as schools struggle to improve.

To understand my expose of Joel Klein's legacy of lies and failures read this!

When Will Chancellor Carmen Farina Say Enough And Remove These Devil Principals?

Once again the Principal of John Bowne High School, Howard Kwait, finds himself on the wrong side of an investigation, according to the New York Post.  This time its for grade changing and the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) is currently interviewing school staff to determine how widespread and blatant the grade changing is.  Like I said, Principal Howard Kwait has had some serious problems before such as harassing female Assistant Principals, wrongly had a female student arrested, and had an affair with a female subordinate who paid for his vacation with her that landed him in hot water with the City's Conflict of Interest Board and cost him a $4,500 fine  Finally, the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) found that there were allegations by female employees of his sexually charged vulgar behavior toward them but the DOE, despite their professed zero tolerance policy for sexual misconduct, chose not to pursue the complaints.  You can find all the sordid details Here, Here,  Here and Here.

Obviously, Principal Howard Kwait is not only an embarrassment to the DOE but has cost the City more than $500,000 in settlements and yet Chancellor Carmen Farina has done nothing about it. Moreover, when the grade changing issue first came up, a couple of years ago, the DOE ignored it. Now the New York Post reports that the DOE has finally decided to look into the grade changing allegations and still Howard Kwait is Principal of John Browne High School, go figure.

Whether it was the Bloomberg or De Blasio administration it matters little as the DOE "double standard" continues with principals allowed to retain their position short of murder while school staff are removed from the school and subject to termination charges for minor or even imaginary offenses.  How are our schools going to improve with principals like Howard Kwait still in charge?

The DOE And UFT Have Made It Easier To Termminate Teachers.

Back in 2007 the UFT and DOE agreed to a voluntary program called "Peer Intervention Program Plus"  or commonly known as PIP+.  The theory behind the PIP+ program was to have an independent evaluator observe the teacher accused of incompetence and recommend possible improvements.  However, the PIP+ evaluator was neither independent or fair and over 90% of the teachers who took the PIP+ program were found to be incompetent and forced to resign. retire, or be terminated in a 3020-a hearing where the Arbitrator almost always found the PIP+ evaluator to be an expert witness.

Interestingly, the union leadership told the Chapter Leaders to encourage these unfortunate teachers to take the PIP+ program without bothering to tell them that the PIP+ program was voluntary and that over 90% of the teachers lost their jobs.   Instead, they told the Chapter Leaders that the PIP+ program would allow the teacher another six months without the school administration observing them and have an independent peer evaluate them.  Unfortunately, the independent evaluator almost always sided with the Principal as they worked for a company that depended on DOE contracts and didn't want "to bite the hand that feeds it" by going against the Principal and finding the teacher competent.  Hence the over 90% incompetence rate. 

Now, with the new teacher evaluation program there is no need for the PIP+ program.  Instead. after a teacher is found to be incompetent the first year he or she gets a peer validator and the first year of the peer validator program, over 70% of the teachers were found to be incompetent by the peer validators and I suspect the percentages will approach the old PIP+ number.  Why do I say that?  Well just read Betsy Combier's blog who published a letter from UFT lawyer Adam Ross that makes it virtually impossible to challenge a peer validator's decision    Despite the UFT/DOE contract that claims that their main goal is to improve one's pedagogy.  In fact, the Ross letter makes it clear that there is no teacher remediation but termination is the sole goal of the program. Moreover, once a peer validator finds the teacher incompetent its virtually impossible for the teacher to avoid termination in the 3020-a process.  Who's side is our union leadership on?  Certainly not the teachers side.' The letter is below.

A Letter To A Field Supervisor From A Disrespected ATR.

I was fortunate enough to have received in my email a letter that an ATR wrote to his field supervisor and I decided to publish it, with some editing for content, for all educators to see and what ATRs in rotation goes through on a daily basis. More importantly, this letter should put to rest that an ATRs job does not have the same stress as regularly appointed teachers.

Dear field supervisor,

Several days ago in one of the schools I was assigned to, these events occurred inside and outside the classroom I was covering.

1. Loud noise and screaming everywhere in the hallway, outside my classroom, for ten minutes into the period. Nobody seemed to care.
2. Many of the students in the class ignore my instruction and refuse to do the assignment.
3. Several students, joke, laugh, play cards, and scream at each other and ignore my commands to behave and do the assigned work.
4. Some students don't even bother to sit down but walk around the room making a commotion.
5. One student screams "F--k you" to another who curses back.
6. A bunch (5-6) of unknown students suddenly enter the room and since they didn't bother to tell me who they were, I quickly realize they were not part of the class.  I ask the group to leave but was met with indifference, I called the Dean for intervention.
7. Almost a dozen students took out their cellphones, put on their headphones, and hoodies and ignored my commands to follow the school rules.
8. Two female students show up twenty minutes late without a late pass and when asked why they were late, they exhibited a nasty response to my question.
9. Two other students leave the room without permission, I called the Dean.
10. Several students engaged in a group project by drawing the middle finger with blood at the tip, on a poster and glued it on the back locker in the room. I asked them not to do that but was ignored.

 Please  advise me how would you feel and act if you are a teacher and being observed in such circumstances?  How would I use the Danielson rubric as a tool for good teaching?

Sincerely, 
ATR

I can only say to teachers, administrators, our disconnected union leadership, and the DOE, this is an almost daily occurrence by ATRs in many of the low performing and undisciplined schools that ATRs are subject to and yet far too many of you close your collective eyes to this terrible situation.  Without giving ATRs real support and demanding consequences for the student's bad behavior, the above situation written to the field supervisor is the rule and not the exception for many ATRs in rotation.

Fair Student Funding Hurts High Poverty Schools And Forces Their Principals To Hire "Newbies" To Stretch Their Budget.

Back in 2007 Chancellor Joel Klein, with the enthusiastic support of Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern and his education deformer friends proposed an entirely new way to fund schools.  It was determined upon a weighted average, based upon student needs that has been used in many different parts of the country.  However, the New York City version was so very different, instead of being used citywide or District wide, as was employed elsewhere, the DOE's  "Fair Student Funding" (fsf)  was school based.  The result was that it forced principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers for their school"  If New York City had used the fsf like the rest of the country, there would be no financial incentive for principals to hire the "cheapest" teachers since the fsf is based upon the District or Citywide.average salary. and most principals want experienced teachers.

To make matters worse, 94% of all city public schools are underfunded, based upon the fsf, with the average school getting only 86% of their allocated fsf as found by the Independent Budget Office.  Because of the "hold harmless" provision, it turns out that most of the schools that are in the higher income areas have the most experienced teachers and are more likely to get their full fsf, while high poverty schools, with high teacher turnover, are getting shortchanged by as much as 18% of what they should be allocated for under the fsf.

More interestingly, has been our union's muted response to the DOE's unfair fsf allocations and in particular their acceptance of the school based fsf in the first place that created the ATR fiasco, with 2,197 educators without a permanent position. While both Randi Wiengarten and Michael Mulgrew has occasionally complained about the fsf, most knowledgeable education observers strongly suspect that our union leadership was complicit in allowing the DOE to impose the destructive school based fsf.

Obviously, the proper thing to do is make the fsf citywide rather than school based and eliminate the financial incentive of hiring the cheapest teachers.  Better yet, eliminate the fsf altogether and maybe, just maybe, high poverty schools will obtain and more importantly, retain experienced teachers for their schools.

Students With Cellphones Are A Distraction To Good Teaching And Learning

One of the worst decision that the DeBlasio Administration made was rescinding the cellphone ban and allowing students to carry their cellphones into school.  The result of this ill-advised decision was an increase in school thefts, fights, and outright violence.  At the Lehman campus in the Bronx it got so bad that the six schools at the school require all their students to give up their cellphones before going to class.  This policy reversed the DeBlasio cellphone policy after the students at the Lehman campus were using their cellphones to coordinate gang fights outside the school.  You can read about it Here.

More importantly, many teachers throughout the City are finding that their students refuse to put their cellphones away in the classroom and in far too many cases it has led to confrontations between the teacher and the disobedient student with bad results.  Worse, the cellphone usage is a distraction to good teaching and learning as the student is more interested in his or her cellphone then absorb the lesson and the teacher must frequently interrupt the lesson to ask the student to put away the cellphone, making the instruction less effective to the entire class.

How can a teacher be effective if the school administration fails to take the cellphone issue seriously and calling parents is not the solution since they usually support their children having a cellphone and suffer no consequence when informed that their child was using the cellphone in class?

The only real solution is to do what the Lehman Campus is doing, making the students check their cellphones at the school door or revert back to the cellphone ban that will allow for less classroom distractions and a more peaceful classroom, the main ingredients for successful teaching and learning.

The Real Problem In Schools Is The Poor Leadership Exibited By Principals.

If you read the newspaper editorials or the education reformer organizations, the key to successful student achievement is a quality teacher.  All other factors are ignored being social-economic conditions, family dysfunction, or peer pressure.  Additionally, except for Susan Edelman of the New York Post, the news media focuses on the teachers and nobody else.  Yet, the school tone and success is lead by one person and one person only, the Principal.  Even our disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, stated that 400 principals should not be running their schools, yet few of these 400 principals have been removed and the few that have been removed happened only after intense media pressure.

The majority of these 400 principals who have no business running their schools are easy to identify.  They have the lowest trust rating from their staff, have a majority of untenured teachers due to high teacher turnover, and have poor student graduation to college ready ratios meaning that their students graduate unprepared for the adult world of college and business.

Who are these unqualified principals?  Most of them are Leadership Academy principals who have no tenure and can easily be removed by the Chancellor.  However, since Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor she has been very reluctant to remove principals.  Here is a list of ones she could have removed but didn't until intense media pressure forced her hand.

First, there was Principal Marcella Sills of PS 106 who was allowed to continue as Principal until the media onslaught put an end to her regime.

Then there was Principal Linda Hill who was found guilty of "double dipping" and was allowed to stay in her post until the end of the school year and it was reveled that her OSI report was completed almost two years previously and was not released by the Chancellor.

Who can forget the Chancellor defending Principal Kathleen Elvin of Dewey High School by falsely claiming her graduation scheme was unsubstantiated only to reverse course as the media presented the facts.

Finally, the Chancellor intially failed to remove Annie Schmutz Selfullah after reports of her sexual misconduct at the school surfaced.  When the Chancellor finally took action to stop the media circus and removed the Principal, the DOE tried to quietly slip her back in as a teacher at a renewal school.

How about other Principals that have retained their position under Chancellor Carmen Farina despite media attention.  Let's look as some of them.

• Eujin Jaela Kim of PS 169 in Brooklyn.
• Santiago Traveras of DeWitt Clinton HS.
• Namita Dwarka of William Cullen Bryant HS.
• Howard Kwait of John Bowne HS.

Obviously, there are many more Principals that need to be removed but a good start in cleaning house would be the ones I identified above and my list of Queens high school principals that had the lowest staff trust ratings should have been history if you ask me.

Poverty Is The Reason We Can't Narrow The Academic Achievement Gap.

The education reformer holy grail is to reduce the income/racial academic achievement gap and to attempt to achieve this goal they have tried different strategies to try to make it happen with little success.  Bill Gates is the poster child of the education reformer organizations and he has tried various strategies, none of them have worked.  First, it was the small school movement which he admitted failure.  Then it was cameras in the classroom that was to be used to identify good teaching that was shot down like a lead balloon.  Next, was advocating charter schools and blended learning which has been a disaster where it has been tried, including New York City.  Finally, his new emphasis is on "teacher quality"  which is a major part of the program of high-stakes testing to evaluate teachers.  However,  many states have retreated from using test scores to evaluate teachers (New York State) or are eliminating it all together like Seattle Washington.

The primary reason that the education reformer organizations can't seem to significantly narrow the income/racial achievement gap is their failure to address the poverty issue.  Nationwide 42% of children who live only with their mother are living in poverty and instead of trying to eliminate poverty by keeping families together, promote safer communities, and have financial and food security. Its easier to lay the blame on the lack of "quality teachers" for poor student academic achievement.

Now we have a 10 year study done in San Diego California that tried mightily to narrow the income/racial achievement gap by hiring more teachers of color, increased teaching professional development, and better teacher certification practices.  The blueprint can be found here.  The result has been disappointing, the ten year study showed only marginal progress and in some cases no progress in narrowing the academic achievement gap.  .

The reason that none of these programs have worked is the failure to address the poverty issue and as long as the education reformer organizations ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room and that is poverty, blaming teachers or the schools will not result in any significant improvements in narrowing the income/racial achievement gap.

Age Discrimination Is Evident In The ATR Pool.

I can only laugh when I read how the DOE is telling the media that they are encouraging principals to hire veteran ATRs when the truth is so very different.  The only thing the DOE is trying to do is to terminate the ATRs by allowing field supervisors (assassins) to recommend to the Superintendent to terminate the ATRs through the 3020-a process.  The DOE, with the UFT leadership's complicit assistance, has pushed to reduce the ATR pool by harassing ATRs to resign or retire rather than push principals to hire the ATRs in their district.  In particular, veteran ATRs with ten or more teaching experience are being targeted for termination while only untenured ATRs are being picked up.

Every ATR that has been sent to my school this year have been over 50 years of age, have 15 or more years of experience, and came from a closing school.  Many of these ATRs are excellent teachers but because of their age and salary, they can only obtain a temporary provisional assignment at best.  This is a blatant case of discrimination and yet our union leadership has closed their collective eyes to this practice.

If the union leadership actually cared about the ATRs they would demand from the DOE the right for ATRs to choose from the various vacancies in the district before principals are allowed to hire anybody else.   To protect lower seniority teachers, the DOE can allow a school an extra teaching unit in that subject area for any ATR selected by the school.  Instead our disconnected union leadership agreed with the DOE and made the ATR a second class citizen.

I truly believe that the DOE is practicing age discrimination and the union leadership has silently allowed it to happen.  Shame on both of them.

City Makes A Mistake And So Did I.

I took down my previous post because the union had informed the Chapter Leaders of the problem.  However, my Chapter Leader failed to inform me that the W2-C was simply a correction for suburban educators that the City incorrectly assigned to the City tax box in our W2 form.  I am sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.  However, the blame lies squarely with the Chapter Leaders who were informed by the union of the issue and have not informed their school staff of the change.

I am sorry for the misunderstanding and the good news is that all the income was reported and for educators who have already filed their taxes, it should not make a difference except that you might have to include the corrected W2 form if asked.

Another Principal Missing In Action While Nepotism Is The Rule On The School's Payroll.

Here we go again.  Yet, another failing Bloomberg small school, with a Leadership Academy Principal, has been exposed for its many failings.  Despite a tepid 56% graduation rate, only 4% were "college ready".  That metric ratio is an astounding 14 when any number over 3 is a school that is a graduation mill and not providing an educational focus on real learning.  The school is the Urban Assembly of Music and Art in Brooklyn with only 387 students.  You can see their school snapshot here.  You can compare the poor performance of this school with the metric ratios of all the Queens high schools and realize that the school would be in the bottom three, if in was located in Queens.

Once again, the New York Post has exposed a school administration for their lack of leadership and in this case, practicing nepotism at the expense of the students' education. The Principal, Paul Thompson,  is rarely seen by students and staff and according to the New York Post article jumped from being a substitute teacher at Bard Early College High School right to being a Principal, thanks to the infamous Leadership Academy, political considerations, and favoritism. The majority of the teaching staff is untenured and turnover is an issue as the school is unable to retain quality teachers. Worse, is that under the school's business manager, nepotism appears to be the rule.

According to the New York Post article, business manager Alma Encarnacion has hired four relatives, including her daughter as parent coordinator, Adam Collado, a cousin by marriage,  Amy Rosa, a niece, and Diana Hernandez, Amy's cousin.  Under Business Manager Alma Encarnacion, its all in the family at the school.

Finally,  teachers have complained that the school Principal has demanded an 80% passing rate and there are are accusations that attendance figures have been altered to show students attending class when they have been missing for weeks and even months since every day a student is absent, costs the school money.  According to the school snapshot not one student in the school received college credit for their Advanced Placement course and the Principal is missing in action when it comes to real leadership, all the hallmarks of a failing school.

The DOE has promised to investigate the situation at the school but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the final report since DOE investigators tend to cover up any embarrassing findings that could snare higher ups. To me its business as usual.

The DOE And UFT Change The ATR Field Supervisor Rules To Help Terminate ATRs.

Quietly, and with little publicity, the DOE has issued new guidelines on how field supervisors (assassins) can recommend to the Superintendent that the "U" rated ATR should be subject to the 3020-a termination hearings.  Previously, the guidelines contained language how field assassins were required to help support the ATR in their pedagogy and assist them in obtaining a position.  The reality was the field assassins offered little or no assistance and are useless in helping ATRs obtain a position.  At best the field assassins were just an inconvenience and at worst were there to "U" rate the ATRs and encourage them to resign or retire.

This year, for the first time, selected ATRs who received two consecutive "U" ratings and who had previously gone through the 3020-a process were served with their 3020-a termination charges for incompetence.  These carefully selected ATRs were the test cases to see if the State arbitrators would terminate these ATRs, based upon flyby observations in classrooms where the ATR did not know the students, had no ownership of their grade, and had no clue if their students were ESL, had an IEP, or were academically on grade level.  So far, to my knowledge, the State arbitrators have not terminated any of these ATRs and have questioned the fairness of the "U" ratings and the lack of real support givin to the ATRs.  While most of the test cases have not resulted in a verdict, the majority of the ATRs appear to have escaped termination.  Thanks, in large part to the field assassin guidelines.

However, starting this semester, the field assassin guidelines have been changed to help the DOE terminate ATRs.  The revised guideline now states the following:



 Take a look at the second paragraph that allows the field assassins to recommend termination to the Superintendent.  This is a change from the previous guideline that did not include this paragraph and only contained information supporting the pedagogy and placement of the ATR.

The question is was the UFT complicit in this ominous change in language?  Of course they were!  The fact that the UFT leadership has remained quiet about this change tells everybody that the UFT has agreed to this guideline change to terminate more ATRs.  If the UFT leadership had opposed it, they would have put a stop to it since the DOE and UFT must jointly approve any changes in the ATR agreement as implemented in the June 2014 contract.

For the ATRs its bad enough that the DOE wants to terminate us but it seems the UFT leadership is helping the DOE thin the ATR herd by stabbing us in the back.  Thanks, to Betsy Combier who first alerted me to the change in the DOE policy to help terminate ATRs.

Teacher Quality And Minority Schools - Its The Student Discipline Issue!

Yesterday Chalkbeat published an article that showed that minority schools have less qualified teachers, suffer from high teacher turnover, lack a Masters degree, and are less likely to be certified in the core subjects.  The report inferred that racism may play a part  in the teacher inequality issue.  However, in my opinion, its about the student discipline policies and not the color of the student's skin that affect teacher quality.

While its hard to ignore the fact that some students grow up with crime, violence, dysfunctional families, and poverty which shows up in the school as student misbehavior.  It doesn't mean that all children disrespect adult authority,  Most students find the school as a "safe haven" and social outlet where they can confide their problems with sympathetic adults.  In fact, it's usually a few students that exhibit continuous disruptive behaviors and interfere with student learning in the classroom.  Even Democratic Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has in the past called Black kids "Super-predators" and refused to apologize when confronted with that statement this week.  Therefore, it is important for a school to have a firm, fair, but strict discipline policy to dispel the myth of a bad kid.. 

Unfortunately, far too many schools don't have a consistent student discipline policy and a few have subscribed to the failed restorative justice approach that the students think is a joke.  The result is a school out of control and quality teachers will either flee the school at their first opportunity, or leave the profession entirely.  .

If a school is to retain and nurture quality teachers, the administration must have the back of their teachers and not stab the in the back and blame the teacher rather than discipline the student.  A school with a firm, fair, and strict discipline policy and a supportive administration will retain quality teachers no matter the student population.

School Diversity And Reality.

The big push by Chancellor Carmen Farina is to try to diversify schools but how do you do this without forced integration which was declared illegal by the Supreme Court back in 2007?  Trying to diversify a school is a very tricky issue.  You don't want to scare off middle income families, manly White, by encouraging them to send their child to a school with low test grades and that cater to low-income minority students from the housing projects.  Moreover, by establishing a quota system as some elementary schools are trying to do has resulted in failure when tried in the past.  The end result was that many middle class families will just send their children to the local parochial or private school, defeating the purpose.  Finally,  no right-thinking parent from well to do households will allow their elementary school child to be bused to a lower performing school outside the neighborhood when their child's friends are going to the higher-performing neighborhood school?  Not many parents will allow their elementary school child to be a guinea pig just to satisfy someone's idea of social engineering.

That brings me to school choice.  Many districts allow parents to select their school and many middle class parents select schools with high test scores and low poverty rates that has caused clustering in specific schools. Few, if any, parent would gamble their child's education and well-being by having them travel outside the safety of their community  for lower quality schools., How will the diversity forces encourage the middle class parents to take a chance in integrating a lower performing school?  Unfortunately,  there is no real solution to this thorny diversity issue.  Even when one or two schools succeed in becoming diverse, they usually tip the other way by ending up to attracting many of the middle class families to the school and crowding out the low-income minority student.  Brooklyn is a prime example where a school that is majority middle-class and white is located a couple of blocks from a near 100% minority school who are usually low income and struggle with low test scores. How do you force middle class families to send their children to these low performing schools?  You can't!

At the high school level, school choice is real and any student can apply to any school in the City.  However, look at our high schools, few are diverse.  Some in Northeastern Queens, Southern Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn are. Otherwise, most of the city high schools are near 100% minority or, when it comes to highly screened and specialized schools, majority Asian/White.  School choice is a joke when it comes to Southeastern Queens where my school is located in a solidly middle to working class community, with no low income projects in the area.  Yet, many of the students in the four schools that inhabit the Campus find that the majority of their students live in Far Rockaway, South Jamaica, and Rochdale Village, all two bus rides from the campus.  Had the Bloomberg Administration retained zoned schools, the Campus would have retained the student population of the community rather than scrounge for low-achieving and over-the-counter students who are usually "high needs".  Three of the four schools in the Campus were short between 75 to 130 students for their freshman class this year and took far too many level one students just to meet the numbers.

The reality of the situation while income and racial diversity is a worthy goal but achieving diversity in the New York City schools is simply a pipe dream.   Bbringing back the neighborhood schools while attacking the poverty issue is a better approach to improve our schools in the long run, even if we cannot solve the school diversity issue...

When Mutual Consent Is Not Mutual When It Comes To The ATR.

I keep hearing from "Unity" how they negotiated a wonderful contract back in June 2014 that also made the ATRs a "second class citizen".  To "Unity" leadership it was how they saved the ATRs their jobs and afforded the ATRs an opportunity to fill vacancies that could eventually lead to permanent appointments.  However, the truth is so very different.  First, it was then UFT Vice President, Michael Mendel, who proposed to the DOE the ATR rotation system that the DOE eagerly embraced it making the ATRs a "stranger in a strange land" as they rotate from school to school without a bathroom key, a place to store their belongings, and in many cases no place to park their car.  To add to the ATR misery, the UFT allowed the DOE to assign field supervisors assassins to unfairly give ATRs "U" ratings when teaching in a classroom where they do not know the students, have no ownership of their grade, little support from the school administration,and have no clue if they have an IEP or their academic abilities.  The UFT leadership encouraged the DOE to assign these field assassins to thin the ATR herd and the first few ATRs are in the process of awaiting their 3020-a termination decisions presently.

For elementary and middle school teachers, the UFT leadership also agreed to allow the DOE to assign these teachers to temporary provisional assignments outside their district and the DOE has made liberal use of this UFT concession by arbitrarily assigning many of these teachers from one district in the borough to a less desirable school in another school district despite the fact that there are ATRs available within the district.  Some of these ATRs who find themselves in temporary provisional assignments, lasting 6 to 12 weeks travel for two hours or more and affect child care, parking issues, and after school activities such as coaching and tutoring for per session pay.  Despite these major issues, the UFT leadership has refused to address these problems or file for any travel hardships on behalf of the ATRs.  Its almost as if the UFT leadership is in cahoots with the DOE in encouraging the ATRs to be abused and to resign or retire in frustration.

That brings me to the "Mutual Consent" that the DOE proudly proclaims as a success.  The Mutual Consent provision is only advantages to Principals as they can take or reject the ATR.  However, the ATR cannot refuse a placement even when it is not a "good fit" as long as the Principal insist that the ATR take the position.  .To me Mutual Consent means both the Principal and ATR agree not a one-sided decision by the Principal.  Where is the UFT leadership on this abuse of the Mutual Consent provision?  They tell the ATR its just too bad and must take the position, if offered.

A Foil request by Solidarity showed that there are actually 2,197 ATRs without a permanent position not the 1,083 that the DOE and UFT claim.  The 1,083 are ATRs still in rotation and not provisionally assigned.  The only ATRs offered permanent positions are newly excessed untenured ATRs, because they cost less.  As for the veteran ATRs?  They are only offered temporary provisional or provisional assignments which end no later than June 28th and will find themselves in the ATR pool the next school year.  How many of these provisionally placed ATRs were forced placed?  I bet, the majority as there is no Mutual Consent when it comes to being an ATR as you cannot refuse a placement without negative consequences.

With the UFT leadership as our alleged protectors the ATRs must realize that they care little about us except to collect our $1,300 yearly dues to fuel their patronage mill, while schools continue to hire untested "newbies" and untenured teachers as the UFT leadership twiddle their collective thumbs and eagerly collect their $1,300 annual dues from them while keeping the ATRs without a permanent placement which is just fine with them.

You Want My Dues. Then Stop Selling Us Out And Do The Following!

Unless you have been hiding under a rock and far too many teachers do so.  There is a UFT election coming up.  The four UFT caucuses are "Unity", MORE, New Action, and Solidarity. In this round MORE and New Action will be nominating a joint slate.  Regardless who wins, if the union loses Friedrichs, dues will no longer be mandatory.  However, for the winning caucus to obtain my $1,300 dues they must first do the following:

1. No top-down management where member interests are now ignored and even ridiculed.
2. Making ATRs whole again, no more second class citizen crap.
3. Show that its teacher justice and stop muddling the message with the social justice bullshit.
4. Democratize all positions above Chapter Leader in a secret ballot.  No more appointments!
5. Require the DOE to honor the contract when it comes to travel hardships, reassignments, and rotations of elementary and middle school teachers in the ATR pool.
6. Demand a fair and impartial investigation.

 My requests are simple and most members would agree with me that we need a more democratic and responsive union.  No longer should our union leadership sells us out every disappointing contract. Remember, the union who most closely meets my six items above will be getting my vote in the upcoming elections and the dues that come with it.



 

The Renewal Superintendency, Run By Favoritism And Not Competence

The New York Post wrote another article showing that Superintendent Amiee Horowitz was more interested in hiring her friends than competent educators to run her renewal Superintendency.  To her its favoritism over competence and it shows with the conflicting orders given to school principals on how to improve their schools.  Is it any wonder that Renewal school principals are picking up "newbie" and untenured teachers in droves, since they're easier to blame and discontinue when the schools continue to struggle, despite receiving more money than most schools and can afford to hire higher salaried teachers.

Yes, this is the same Amiee Horowitz who ignored Regents cheating at a Brooklyn high school but discontinued the untenured teacher who filed the complaint.  In fact, she tried to have the DOE file a section 31 action to take her teaching license but the DOE realized no such action was warranted.  You can read the story here.  Moreover, its under Amiee Horowitz where the vast majority of teachers hired by the renewal schools were novice teachers.  

All you need to read are the posts I have written about Amiee Horowitz and its easy to see its not about student academic achievement, its about  who she likes and not what's best for the students.

Maspeth High School, DOE Credit Cards, And Marcella Sills.

Give the New York Post reporter Susan Edelman credit, she is the only education reporter that does not buy into the education deformer narrative that students don't need more resources and smaller class sizes, just better teachers to eliminate the academic achievement gap.   Susan Eldelman fully understands that its the underhanded, unaccountable, and sleazy DOE bureaucrats at Tweed along with the poor quality of principals they select to run the schools that are a major reason for the educational deficiencies that many public schools experience in New York City and not "ineffective teachers".

In today's article, Susan Edelman wrote about how the administration of Maspeth High School is requiring students, where 69% of their families are considered poor, to buy their English books,  Moreover, the Principal of Maspeth high school is on the "dirty dozen" list of principals that teachers don't trust in Queens.  If that isn't enough, Maspeth High School has the highest percentage of untenured teachers at 83%.  The staff is so young that they must wear name tags to differentiate them from the seniors of the school.  Moreover, I have been told that many of the teachers are forced to do extra unpaid duties at the school and the previous Chapter Leader was discontinued by the Principal when he tried to enforce contract provisions on the administration and protect the staff from arbitrary actions. Read last summer's article on Maspeth by nyc educator.

What has the DOE did about this?  Nothing, absolutely nothing!   Where is OSI or SCI?  Oh, I forgot, its not about teachers but a favored Principal appointed by his Tweed superiors.   Therefore, let's not investigate it or risk having to substantiate the apparently illegal and immoral actions by the school administration. You can see Maspeth High School's latest snapshot Here.

Finally, and quietly, on January 22nd, almost 2 years after being reluctantly removed by Chancellor Carmen Farina, due to pressure by the media, from her position by the DOE ex-Principal Marcella Sills was terminated by her 3020-a arbitrator due to extreme misconduct.  Remember her story when she was Principal at PS 106 in Far Rockaway which was known as "the school of no"?

One Renewal School's Bogus Rubric To Give Failing Students A Passing Grade.

I was contacted by a teacher who decided to blow the whistle on how his school makes it virtually impossible to fail the students at the renewal school he works in.  If a student shows up once and awhile to class, he cannot get a grade of below 55%.   Worse, they devalue subject area knowledge to 30% of their grade. That means students who are academically lacking can pass by simply obtaining points from the other four areas. Let's take a look at the renewal school's classroom grading policy,

Classroom Grading Policy

Habit......................................Weight

Personal Responsibility..............10%
Social Responsibility..................10%'
Critical Thinking........................20%
Communication........................20%
Academic Knowledge................30%

Notice it does not add up to 100% and affords the school the 10% "wiggle room" to raise a 55% grade to 65% and pass the academically undeserving student.

For example, a hypothetical student named Carmen takes a course in English and shows up when she feels like it.  Carmen refuses to do her homework but does take notes when she attends class.  Moreover, when she does show up she is relatively well-behaved and that she does exhibit some social responsibility by cooperating with classmates on tasks.  Finally, she communicates and has shown some basic critical thinking skills.  Before we look at Carmen's final grade let's see how many points she obtained without the academic component.


Personal Responsibility..............5%
Social Responsibility.................5%'
Critical Thinking......................20%
Communication.......................20%
Total...................................50%

Academically, Carmen constantly fails her tests and quizzes and after a curve, her average academic grade is 50%.  Therefore, when you add the 15% to the 50% from the other four habits, Carmen gets a passing grade of 65%.  Even if Carmen falls short, there is always the additional 10% "wiggle room" the school can award the student to ensure she passes the course.

Devaluing a diploma is academic fraud but at least one renewal school only cares about their credit accumulation and graduation rate and not the academic achievement for their students or the fact that they are pushing out students who are academically unprepared.

Note: in today's New York Post, ant-teacher Carl Campanile published an article that showed an increase in graduation rates for the renewal schools. However, as shown above, the graduation rate is not based upon academic achievement but a rubric that makes it difficult for teachers to fail students who bother to show up, while doing little actual work.
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The DOE Finds 36 High Schools Abuse The Credit Recovery Program. Or Did They?

The DOE's task force on cheating quietly found that 36 high schools abused the "credit recovery" programs but in typical DOE fashion, refused to identify any of the 36 high schools and protecting wayward principals from public scrutiny.

Apparently, the DOE wrote a report that identified 36 high schools that inappropriately used the "credit recovery" program and recommended corrective action be taken.  However, the report has not been made public and without a detailed review of the findings there is little way to know if the principals of these 36 schools were found to have inappropriately give out "free credits" or that the abuses were minor and did not significantly affect the credit accumulation of the students involved?

The problem is that the DOE has so far refused to make the anti-cheating task force report available to the media or general public.  Therefore, one must take the report's conclusion with suspicion.  Maybe, if an independent task force had prepared the report, I might believe it.  However, the DOE has time and again found nothing wrong only to find major problems that the DOE ignored.

The Deputy Chancellor claims they were proactive but without a detailed inspection of the report and the data that went into the conclusions, there is no way to determine the accuracy and truthfulness of the conclusions.

In Defense Of A Discontinued Teacher

In yesterday's New  York Post there was a story about a teacher accused of sexually abusing students who ended up being discontinued by the DOE.  Before I go into the story let me tell you that there should be "zero tolerance" of proven sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student and they should be arrested and terminated while losing their teaching license.  However, as I have previously written, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) will almost always substantiate sexual misconduct charges if a student complains that the teacher touched him or her inappropriately.  I should know because SCI substantiated such a complaint against me only to have the 3020-a arbitrator, faced with real and relevant evidence and an ever-changing story by the student involved,  rightly ruled that no sexual misconduct happened.

Back to the story, the discontinued teacher was accused by four different students (both boys and girls) of touching them inappropriately and sexually.  If the charges were remotely true then why wasn't the teacher arrested by the NYPD sex crimes unit?  Obviously, an adult accused of sexually touching a minor gives the police "probable cause" to arrest the adult.   Especially, as one boy claimed he engaged in oral sex with the teacher.  Could the reason be that the NYPD looked into the accusations and decided the students were not credible?  I certainly think this might be the case. However, since the default by OSI and SCI is that the teacher is guilty of the allegation, they didn't need "probable cause" to substantiate the accusations, despite the questionable credibility of the students.

According to the teacher,  who was not tenured and teaching Special Education students, the four students complained after he called their homes to tell their parents about their unruly behavior.  Could the four students have conspired to make up the sexual abuse allegations as revenge?  Maybe, and I wouldn't discount that possibility.  The fact the teacher was not arrested tells me that the NYPD did not believe the student allegations makes me question the student's accusations.

The New York Post article also claimed one boy was crying when telling his story to the SCI investigators.  Was he crying because he was alone with two strange detectives and was stressed and scared of being caught in a lie?  Or was he crying due to the alleged abuse?  I don't know the answer to this but again, why didn't the NYPD arrest the teacher, even if it was to simply arraign him?  When the male teacher from Brooklyn Tech was found to have committed sexual misconduct, he went to jail.  So did the female gym teacher at Grover Cleveland.  Yet, the NYPD did not arrest this teacher?

Being a recipient of SCI's flawed and corrupt investigations, I am highly suspicious of the SCI report on the discontinued Special Education teacher since the NYPD chose not to arrest the teacher, despite the allegations lodged against him.  If he really did it, he should count his lucky stars that he is not in jail but my own experience tells me that he was simply an unfortunate example of the overzealous SCI investigative process.

A Great Loss To The Blogosphere. No More Perdido Street School

To my great shock and dismay I read that Perdido Street School is no longer a source of very important education news.  The author Reality Based Educator (RBE) has discontinued his blog and that is a great loss to the education blogosphere.

We bloggers are the voice of the educator and losing one of the best will create a void for the rest of us.  Like RBE, Arthur Goldstein aka nyc educator, encouraged me to start my own blog and it has made me a better and more informative  person.  Perdido Street School was one of the first blog posts I read every day and while I might not always agree with RBE's politics, I highly respect his opinion.  How he can update his blog twice or even three times a day is beyond me.  I have trouble enough updating my blog once every two days.

RBE, you will be greatly missed and we all hope that you reconsider and bless us with your insight and information that we all depend on.

High Schools With Untrustworthy Principals In Queens.

One of the more stressful environments teachers find themselves in is when they do not trust their Principal, be it for incompetence, vindictiveness, or just being plain abusive.  When there is a lack of trust between the staff and the school administration, it only ends up hurting the students both academically and emotionally.  Therefore,  its important for teachers looking for positions which schools they would be wise not to apply to.  The "dirty dozen" list below comes from the latest school snapshot (2014-2015) that shows the schools that have the least trustworthy principals that should be on everybody's "do not apply" list.

School................................Trust Principal

Queens Gateway.....................23%
William Cullen Bryant..............40%
Cambria Heights Academy.......43%
Flushing.................................46%
Science, Research,  and Math...60%
Grover Cleveland....................60%
Richmond Hill..........................63%
Queens HS for Teaching...........63%
Queens Collegiate...................63%
American Studies....................67%
Maspeth.................................68%
Martin Van Buren....................70%



The citywide average is 82%

Just missing inclusion into the "dirty dozen" were Queens Preparatory Academy (71%), Forest Hills (72%), Newcomers (73%), and York College High School For The Sciences (73%).

 One thing that I have been told is that even though the survey is not subject to the Principal's scrutiny, many teachers don't want to take the chance that their Principal will find out.  Therefore, they don't truefully fill out the survey with negative comments in fear of being targeted.

Maybe Chancellor Carmen Farina should start with this list, when she finally decides to remove poor leaders who have not gained the trust of their staff and, in turn, hurts the school's learning environment.

The Parent From Hell.

In every class you always have a parent or two who believes their child walks on water when they can't even swim!   However, what's even worse, there is always the parent from hell who believes their child is perfect and deserves high scores when the reality is the student's work is mediocre at best.   That is the case today as I was pulled out of my grading assignment to document the grade I gave a child.

The grade I gave the child was based upon four different factors, tests, labs, assignments, and participation.  When I added up the entire package the final grade was a touch below what I gave the student, so I rounded up the grade to the higher value.  I didn't penalize the student for missing days or arriving late to school, which I should have done.  Finally, on the days the student didn't show up to my class, the student could come in the next day and pick up and make up the assignment.  The same goes for the student's missing labs.

Naturally, the student never bothered to make up the missing labs or take the previous assignments.to do Therefore, the blame was placed not upon the student, who's failure to make up the assigned work but was placed squarely on me by the parent since I didn't inform the parent of every assignment she did not complete.  Moreover, I failed to have an online grading book so the parent could closely follow on the internet her child's progress.  I also was at fault for not getting back to the parent about the student;s grade, despite the fact I had not calculated the grade at the time since I was still marking labs and did not finish grading the last test given that day.

Reading this you would think I failed the student?  The grade the student received was a "B" average and I was being generous!  Unfortunately,   for some reason this parent believes her student is an "A" student and her grade would have been higher, except its because I'm a lousy teacher and I don't appreciate the student. The parent of course,  ignores the six days that her child missed my class in the last two months or the problematic behavior her child exhibits far too many times as well as the student's lack of focus.

I would like to say the school administration had my back but I spent the entire morning being made to justify my grade for the student and being threatened with going to the Superintendent's Office to micromanage my grading policy and organization.  Having my back?  It felt like I was being stabbed in the back!  I felt quite disrespected and people want to know why there is a looming teacher shortage?

In the next semester, to protect myself from both the school administration and helicopter parents, including  the parent from hell, I will make every effort to document everything daily but I will not use an online grading book and have big brother watching my every entry. Furthermore,  I never use an online grading book until and unless the union contract requires it.  To me that is too much work and I have a life after school even if other people don't think I should..